Monday, 3 September 2012

Mukhtalif

One great advantage of posting work online is the possibilities it brings about for dialogue. I linked the previous post to a friend, and she related a little critcism to me. The tone of the discussion is informal, but I thought the story she related was interesting and wanted to include it in my notes. I have anonymised this IM conversation, editing some parts out and renaming the participants 'the artist' (myself) and 'the other' (her).

The other: alright, I think starting off with the rant about London was a good thing actuallyThe artist: Yeah?The other: honestly, I knew fuck all about psychogeography until you prompted me to google it and it is very city centricThe other: so establishing that this is not that and why is good, I thinkThe artist: I mean, you don't think that I'm talking out my arse with the political angle?The other: I mean, I could pick it apart line by line there were parts that I felt overdid itThe other: but this is more generalThe artist: Yeah, it overeggs a bitThe artist: I'm probably going to take it apart and work some of the stuff from that other blog post in thereThe artist: It's astonishing how much less forced my writing becomes simply because I'm putting it on a blogThe other: but the thing I liked mostThe artist: I think it has something to do with the audienceThe other:here lets see if I can find the precise bitThe other: In the British countryside (on the Island) the environment is no less artificial than the city; it is a place that has been built up and altered by thousands of years of human interaction with the environment. There is no true wildness to it, no danger.The other: hereThe artist: When I'm writing in a word document I think I slip too easily into artbollocksThe other: I really liked that partThe artist: But writing on a blog I implicitly think more towards a mass audience, albeit an intelligent oneThe artist: ThanksThe artist: I want to take apart the nature/culture dichotomy a bit more thoroughly perhapsThe other: ayeThe other: och why am I so bad with words I keep getting stuck on words in the wrong language, I am having one of those daysThe artist: Which words?The artist: I mean, you say you're terrible with words, but how many languages can you speak again?The other: okay so I think it pretty well establishes the ways in which this explores the same themes as other psychogeographic works, like the context means you're going to have to think about things differently but because this is exploring a rural environment doesn't mean it's divorced from the human elementThe other: that's WHY I'm so bad with wordsThe other: I kept getting stuck on mukhtalifThe other: which means differentThe other: but it doesn't mean differentThe other: mukhtalif implies the same thing dressed differentlyThe artist: Not sure if there's an exact equivalent English wordThe other: yeahThe other: there's a kid's storyThe other: about this Indian prince who is trying to arrange a marriage with a Chinese princess from a small kingdom who is a famous beautyThe other: and so she comes to visit and he shows her all the fancy things he hasThe other: including his prized white peacocksThe artist: *nod*The other: and she asks "Do they sing?" and he tells her no, they don't and she asks "Can you eat them?" and he tells her that they're only killed for special occasions but the meat is very good but they are mostly kept for their beautiful plumageThe other: anyway when her father comes to finalise the match she shows him the peacocks and tells himThe other: "And these are the prince's chickens"The other: do you get what I am saying?The artist: I think soThe artist: Is it about pretense?The other: a little and about contextThe artist: A rose by any other name? But the opposite, in a wayThe other: ayeThe artist: A turd by any other name...The other: this is basically establishing that London is the prince's chickenThe other: and to the Chinese princess a peacock is just as valuable her most favourite henThe artist: I get youThe artist: Do you mind if I anonymise this conversation and stick it in my notes by the way?The artist: By which I mean on the blogThe other: aye go ahead

The story my friend related is apparently a 'mahavra', a short story of a sort common in Urdu which explains the meaning of a word.